Ah, souvenirs. The tears. The drama. The briefly lived joy.

As mentioned in my last souvenir post, souvenirs are really the bane of my existence. It feels like literally all my children care about – items to collect dust, to leave in a restaurant, to break 25 min later. We might as well take the Euros and literally throw them into the street.

Sometime in the early fall, I decided I had had enough of the souvenirs and I needed more tears 😂. So I flat refused to let them buy anything else. But, when they weren’t looking, I puchased most of the things they swore if they got, they’d “never ask for anything else again”. I saved them and decided they would make good Christmas gifts.

“The box of tears”

This year, each kiddo got a box of souvenirs for Christmas. Coined by Justin as “the box of tears,” it was the stuff they asked for, cried for, begged for with the addition of some other souvenirs I just thought they’d like.

I was pretty excited about the box of tears. Honestly though, the reaction was a little along the lines you would expect – they’d forgotten about most of them already, which just proves my point that they JUST want to spend money for the sake of spending money.

What were the items, you ask? Well, first Natalie only really asked for a rock from the zoo and a Belgium keychain. Also, she doesn’t get too upset when told no. Thank goodness, because we need some stability to balance the other two’s instability. And Benny doesn’t count – he just wants a sucker or a car.

Benny and his London cars – two double decker buses, one Mini Cooper, and one London taxi

So Natalie got her rock, her keychain, a glass perfume bottle from Italy, Earrings from Italy, clover earrings from me on my Ireland trip, the Alice in a wonderland notepad that she saw while digging through my bag (in May! So I withheld it all year), and an Alice in Wonderland pin for her Disney necklace.

Meredith’s box held her rock, a strange fake bird clip/hair clip (not even sure what it’s really for), Italian glass perfume bottle, Italian earrings, a Disneyland pin, and a coin purse and earrings from Ireland.

Wesley’s box held the most tears. That 0 euro bill really, really made him mad. He wanted that bill because we “never give him paper Euros”. That and the rock from the zoo – you’ve never seen a 6 year old boy lose his mind like that.  Over a rock – a freaking rock! He also got a Napoleon statue, a souvenir coin and a ball from Ireland.

Goodbye, money

Since the last post on souvenirs, we’ve said goodbye to a few more, forgotten about the “must haves” that I did allow, found some misplaced ones, and cried desperately over new ones.

Napoleon, you were a great hat. You made it 6 solid months and 3 visits to Waterloo. Overall, not disappointed in the purchase. Sad it’s gone, but we got some decent enjoyment out of you. Also sadly we said goodbye to your sword (Benny!!!) but we loved you so much, we bought you AGAIN.

Handmade Italian ponchos, I loved you. My girls, not so much. I begged and begged for them to wear you after Italy, but to no avail. It didn’t fit the day or it was raining or they had PE or they are had to wear a coat and it didn’t work. Sigh. (Side note: I’m forcing them to wear them today on our car ride).

At least I got some pretty fun pictures in the ponchos!

Handmade Dutch wooden clogs – after one day of wear, you were replaced by boots for the winter (so I like to think).

Remember these???? She doesn’t!!! 😂Wooden clogs from the Netherlands

Paris-themed manicure kit – procured with Meredith’s OWN money! She loved you sooooooooo much. Sooooooooo much she couldn’t put you down. Within ONE day, your super awesome nail file that was her “favorite thing ever”, just flew out of her hand into some sort of black hole (some perfectly small and unreachable, invisible spot in her aunt’s rental car).

Manicure kit

Hello, old friends

FOUND: the knight’s helmet and lance from The Tower of London. Thanks to my last post, our friends realized Wesley had left them in their house! Yay! Similarly, the Guinevere-type dress Meredith “must have” from the Tower of London, also reappeared in her dress-up closet. London souvenirs reunited!

Worst mom ever

DENIED: A diary “just like Anne Franks!!!!” from the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam. Not even a week after Christmas and the presentation of the box of tears and reminders of past souvenirs, and I’m the worst mom ever again. I wouldn’t let Meredith get ANOTHER diary 🙄. She honestly must have 25 notebooks/diaries/notepads that she NEVER touches. She stomped out and threw a fit like a toddler. She’s 8.

It’s really our (my) fault 😂

As for us, we like souvenirs too. That’s part of the problem. I’ve created these “ou venir” monsters (Name of a Belgian souvenir store – Ou Venir). I enjoy browsing for small items to remind me of where we’ve been and what we’ve done.

We have a pretty random collection of stuff we’ve picked up – plates, little statues, city drawings, etc – pretty typical tourist stuff.

We’ve also been collecting Starbucks mugs for years. They’ve changed designs at least 3 times since our first mug. We don’t always buy one when we go somewhere, but we do have a decent collection (maybe 20-25?).

Part of the Starbucks collection. The original mugs are sadly in storage.

But, we’re not immune to breaking souvenirs immediately either. In 2008, Justin and I took a Space A (space available military flight) to Europe. Nothing quite like being completely unprepared. First, we stupidly packed for a country we didn’t end up in. Second, we packed huge rolling suitcases. Third, we ended up trekking on cobblestone streets (because cars couldn’t drive into the city in Seville) with the huge, ill-packed suitcases, that didn’t roll and easily tipped over… thus began our “ghosts of souvenir’s past”. 😂😂😂 RIP original Starbucks’ Paris mug. RIP Paris plate. Lessons learned.

Happy 2018!

As cliché as it is, it’s hard to finish out a year and not look back on the highlights, lowlights, and lessons learned. In broader terms (longer terms), I also tend to look back on Justin’s military order “tours” and  see just how much each place has impacted the “rounding” of my character (not sure I’m at “well rounded” yet 😬), and this set of orders is definitely impactful.

Eight months in to our jump across the Atlantic and I’m still kind of all over the place. One minute it all feels like it’s going too fast and I need more time. The next minute I’m stuck in what feels like groundhog’s day that will NEVER end (the rain! Make. It. Stop. There will be a whole other post on that). Sometimes I feel like I just hopped off the train here and congratulate myself for trying a new store alone but then I realize I’ve been here closer to a year and I can’t keep using the “I’m new” excuse.

Highlights from 2017

• The obvious: all the country-hopping  – ten countries for me this year
• Waffles! Frites! Beer! Chocolate! French bread! Chocolate croissants!
• A work sabbatical! The anxiety over what to do with sick kids has calmed for the time being
• Personal development: I think I read SIX whole books in 2017! I think that’s more than than the last six years combined! And I got to take 2 day trips alone!
• New friends, new sports, new activities
• Kids “learning” a second language

Lowlights:

• Losing my independence – both from a professional career standpoint and from leaving my home country
• Struggling through the my “personal development”/identity crisis (still struggling!)
• Losing my Ikey
• Constantly feeling inept and overwhelmed
• Feeling anxious about EVERYTHING – travel warnings, people staring, my car, how “American” we look, how loud we are, if the food is cooked 😳
• The weather! SADs really is a thing!
• No air conditioning (hard to remember this now, but 3-4 weeks of 93 degree weather with no A/C and no screens (the flies!) is the pits)

Lessons learned: (oh soooo many!)

• First and foremost, I love America 😍. As cool as this experience is, I am blessed to have American blood and even more blessed to have American facilities over here (post office with Amazon!, commissary)
• Almost as important of a lesson as how much I ♥️ America…is that I NEED and VALUE my career and all that comes with it. It was a lot of blood, sweat and tears to earn it, but I didn’t see the other values it had until now – independence (leaving the house sans kiddos), the feeling of being good at something/helping people/knowing what you’re doing, and of course, the money 😬
• My calling was not as a SAHM
• I CAN cook (but have learned some lessons like to not over cook rice and never cut garlic and put in fridge uncovered 😳)
• I still don’t love to cook 😂👆🏻
• I CAN live without eating out and especially without fast food (though I did seriously binge on Chick-Fil-A while in Nashville in November)
• Even staying at home, the cleaning/laundry will never be actually DONE
• Not a new lesson, but one that constantly repeats itself – I’m thankful for the other very helpful military wives and other friends that always step up to help in a new and scary place, which leads to 👇🏻
• ALWAYS take the help! If someone offers help, take it!
• Its ok to put yourself first sometimes – trying to be the best at everything for everyone doesn’t make anyone happy and just makes me overwhelmed and irritable
• And sometimes you just have to slow down. Life does not move at the American pace over here. Patience is a virtue I don’t have, but am working on

Traveling lessons learned

• History is amazing
• Wifi and cellular service are not to be depended on
• As much as it may seem like they are, no two churches are the same (swing and pool?!?)
• Always have cash – it’s super frustrating and embarrassing to be trying to purchase something when they don’t take card and you never know if you’ll need to pay for a bathroom, which takes me to 👇🏻
• Never pass up the bathroom, especially one that is free
• Always pack a water bottle and probably always have snacks
• A cross-body purse is a MUST
• Leggings (while not suited for my body 😳) are really the easiest and lightest to travel in (though no pockets sucks – that’s what the cross-body purse is for)
• In this area of Europe – never leave home without the umbrella, raincoat/hat, which leads to 👇🏻
• December (and I’m SURE winter in general) is NOT a good season for traveling! The weather is THE WORST and nothing but miserable to be outside in, and lots of fun attractions are closed Nov-March. (We think they promote the Christmas markets so much because without those you may have to go into hibernation)
• It pays to be nice (except when flying RyanAir – just knock all those a-holes down). Really the only way to get things done here is by being nice. My natural disposition to get hot and angry doesn’t help anything 😳
• Souvenirs are the way to my kids’ hearts (souvenir update coming soon)
• Ice cream and/or lollipops can calm a crazy kid in a heartbeat
• So can a good old-school playground
• This is not necessarily a new lesson learned while here, but is worth mentioning – buffets are terrible with 4 kids (my kids anyway!). It’s too much up and down and carrying plates/kids trying to make their own and carry plates/one person sitting at the table while the other makes 6 plates. Table service is usually faster and tastes better 👍🏻
• Pizza restaurants are the best for big families and small children. They’re loud, quick, relatively inexpensive, usually seat large parties, and most kids will eat pizza or spaghetti. That being said, we’re about Pizza’d out over here (hashtag – things I never thought I’d say)
• And finally, some times (actually most of the time) the less known cities/areas of cities are the coolest. People travel to the famous cities to reinforce what they want to believe about a city, which can make it much less fun and way too crowded (think Times’ Square in NYC). A few examples:

1. Amsterdam, NL overwrought with marijuana, like just absolutely unbelievable amounts. Gouda, NL was just as cute but without the overwhelming smell and puff clouds of pot.
2. The back side of Venice was amazing. It was filled with quiet streets and quiet canals for easy gondola rides and local shops hand making Venetian papier mâché masks and glass blown items, where the main drag was an uncomfortable tourist trap with shops and shops of mass produced items, and bumper-to-bumper gondolas. And neighboring cities Vincenza and Verona were also amazing!

So what good would it be reflecting on 2017 if I didn’t try to up-the-bar in 2018? So, my goals for 2018 are as follows:

• Read more than 6 books!
• Continue to try to find my “self” and what I was meant to do
• Exercise (obligatory “resolution”)
• Mission trip
• Budget, budget, budget (and don’t use credit card!
• Spend less on food and unnecessary clothing (sloooooooow to a stop on shopping 😳)

And finally, I’m going to learn French. BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. JUST KIDDING! (Never going to happen). Let’s go, 2018!

One of the hardest decisions for our big European move was what to do with the dogs. It felt selfish to bring them and even more selfish to leave them – both sides with the knowledge that this time would come.

And here it is. Today’s the day I’ve dreaded for years. The day I say goodbye to my first pet, my first “child”.

Milton, Florida, 2006

Sir Eisenhower of Blackwater River (official name 😘), otherwise known as our Ike, and Ike-y to my kids, was my sidekick for 11 years, my whole “adult” life. He was our “we’re now adults” present to ourselves and helped us celebrate my pharmacy school graduation at the ripe old age of 9 weeks.

Pharmacy school graduation, May 9, 2006

It crushes me that we left him behind and that I’ve missed this last 6 months. It’s been very hard on me without him (and Ollie!). They make our house feel more homey, they bark at the UPS driver (daily amazon packages!) even though they always gave them treats, and here, they could’ve scared away the weirdos!

The dogs ensured that I was never alone. In strange new towns with no friends or family (5 moves!), there they were. New life events (4 babies!), there they were. They were my constant and how I wish they could’ve been part of our European adventures with us!

My Ikey

For the last 11 years, he’s the “being” I’ve spent most of my time with. More than Justin, more than my kids. My sweet dogs (don’t forget Ollie who is going to have a VERY hard time without Ike) have been my best friends.

He sat by me when I took my first pregnancy test for my now TEN year old daughter and he laid with me on the bathroom floor when I was painfully sick with my baby#4, and was there in my room with me when my water broke way too early at 33 weeks.

He laid with me when I was alone (on the bed he wasn’t allowed on 😂) during 3 deployments and countless TDYs and night flights (and plenty of scary “what if” moments).

Kept me company on the bed as long as daddy wasn’t around

He let 4 kids lay on him like a boppy, climb on him like a pony, pull his tail, rub his back and pet his head. He faithfully sat under each kid’s high chair and helped me clean my floor. And he tripped us in the kitchen always begging for more.

Such a good boppy

He’s been a road trip companion for countless trips with just me and the kids and completed a pretty big cross country loop around with Justin and I – from Florida to Virginia to Nevada to California back to Florida and back to Virginia.

He’s played in the waters of the Gulf and the Atlantic (and maybe even pacific!), in Lake Tahoe and Pyramid Lake in Nevada, hung out on the boat with us, and found himself in many (MANY) less than desirable water holes 😂. He stretched his legs on the salt flats of Utah, run in the hills of Nevada and Tennessee, and walked through the awesome Spanish moss trees in Jacksonville, Florida as my walking buddy. I’m sad he didn’t get to see the farm fields of Belgium – he would’ve loved it!

Beaches of Pensacola as a tiny puppy 🐶

Salt flats of Utah

Beaches of Biloxi

The beautiful trees of Ortega

And he’s even frolicked in the snow of Virginia, Nevada, and some more Virginia.

Finally, as you can see from my 8654 pictures, he supported my desires to make him extra handsome and faithfully donned bananas without too much fuss for most of his life.

Handsome as a young lad in his bandana

And everyone knows I love some good coordination

But no matter how much I love him and his companionship, he always loved his daddy more…

Welcome home, daddy!!! I missed you the MOST!

Now, there are no more tumors, no more itching, no more surgeries, no more cones of shame, no more arthritis, no more ironing boards, and no more dying fire alarm batteries. But I am pretty sure there is now endless amounts of ice cream 🍦 and toys to tear apart.

I hope you loved your life as much as we did. Goodbye my sweet brown boy. We love you.

Summer has come and gone, our travels have significantly slowed (almost to a stop), a new school year has started, and homework and after school activities and sports are taking over our lives. We’ve been to birthday parties and cookouts and festivals, gone to see a ton of new movies (yay for English movies on the base!), tried a lot more local stores (though I still Amazon – yep, it’s a verb – daily), and gotten more active in church than we ever have been in the past.

Fall in Belgium

Ah, the new normal…I’ve had many people tell me it would be around 6 months for me to get comfortable here…to find my “normal”. It’s now a little over 5 months (but we left our last house 6 months ago, so I’m calling it NOW), and I’d say it’s happened. It’s “comfortable”. We could easily forget where we are while driving around and hanging out in the house. It’s not until there is a sign in French or someone speaking on an overhead in French until you realize it’s really not “that” normal 😂. The malls seem to mostly play American/English music, so I can be walking around feeling totally at home until I have to interact wth someone.

As strange as it sounds, it’s not that different from my experience moving to Nevada, and maybe even other regular military moves. Realistically, it probably always takes 6 months to get “comfortable” in a new place.

After living in the south for roughly 20 years, Nevada was a HUGE shock for me. Granted I was pregnant and emotional, but there were soooooo many tears, and those tears lasted for MONTHS. At first, it felt impossible to make friends and everyone and everything seemed so cold. And then, as if the feeling of “coldness” wasn’t bad enough, it snowed IN OCTOBER and continued all winter and even snowed the following JUNE! But in the end, Nevada ended up being one of our favorite places, and it gave me my Wesley (my perma-souvenir) and some of the best friends that have and will do anything to help me. It was my first experience in actually learning about the “real” me and how much the real me needed other people for SO many reasons and how I need to accept help and rely on the village.

So if the other side of the country was hard, imagine the other side of the world! But we’re trying! Making friends and listening to the word-of-mouth suggestions (and million different FB pages for this base) have been our lifelines. This is one of those places where you really have to rely on others for the good info (travel, stores, sports, etc).

Just to keep anyone who is interested up-to-date – here is our fall schedule. It’s so much that I think I may have to break down and get a desk calendar to leave in the kitchen.

Natalie and Meredith are taking ballet 3 days a week – classical ballet on Wednesdays and modern ballet on Mondays and Thursdays. Meredith is MUCH more into modern ballet and her fun Portuguese teacher than she is classical ballet, which I’m sure will not surprise anyone who knows her 😂. And Natalie and Meredith signed up and did the first training to be altar servers at church! Yay, Jesus!

Classical ballet

Modern ballet

Wesley is “playing” soccer twice a week, meaning he plays for maybe 1/2 of the game and when he’s goalie or on the sideline he’s just way out in left field. He is also going to do the 1st grade Lego club.

And then there’s Bennett. We’ve been trying to go to story time at the library each week. He is not a socialized child, he’s a wild banshee. He likes to climb on the tables and move the chairs around instead of listening to the story, but we keep trying. In addition to story time, I finally got him signed up for the hourly day care on the base (can only use a few hours a week, with an appointment, if they have room, but better than nothing!). YAYAYAY! He’s been twice and the word on the street is that he really likes to wash his hands and he needs to work on eating with utensils. In February, he’ll start Belgian kindergarten (preschool) and will learn French!

Me? I’m still stuck in an existential “who am I?” crisis 😂. What am I going to do with myself? And when am I going to start? While I’m finally comfortable, I’m still just not sure what’s next.

Justin signed us up to teach Sunday school (something he’s always wanted to do – but me? I am no teacher 😳). I am hoping this is a good start to figuring out my next 2.5 years (hard to believe I’m 1/6 of the way through this! It’s going too fast!). I mean, if nothing else, we have seventh graders – oh so awkward (like me!) At least I can relate to them – I’m stuck in an awkward “who am I as a 36 year old?” just as much as they are a “who am I?” middle schooler. And they giggle inappropriately and don’t pay attention, just like me.

As a family we are still trying to do as much as possible with our “free” time and still trying to make the most of our weekends. Last month we did some more sightseeing (shopping) in Bruges and Ostend (beach) and we spent last Saturday at the local Oktoberfest! I know it’s not the one in Munich, but it’s put on by the German cohorts here and it was pretty fun (with the exception of some interesting children situations 😳 WESLEY!). For fall break we’re going to take advantage of €16 rountrip airline tickets and add a new country to our list! Arrivederci!

Bruges offers some good advice for my existential (😂) crisis – “According to chemistry, alcohol is a solution”

Love for Auburn in Bruges – we even got two “War Eagles!”

Brussels in the fall – chilly and rainy – still eating ice cream

Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest (it was very crowded, we just got there the minute it opened)

Bier!

Biers and meats and cheeses! (Horrible picture! It’s hard to have a little take a picture from a good angle!)

Netflix giveth and Netflix taketh away. I’ve been a Netflix fan since the day it came out. I used to order DVDs like none other. I love Netflix. She’s always been so good to me!

I know shows come and go on Netflix, but it never bothered me before NOW. Here  in Belgium, we only get 6 TV channels in English – CNN, CNBC, and BBC1-4. It’s enough for the news but there aren’t really any shows or mindless entertainment.

We have Amazon prime but it isn’t streamable here without a VPN (which we don’t currently have). We also own a bunch of digital movies on Amazon, but again, there is no way to stream it other than our Kindles (Which Benny is ok with 👍🏻).

Then there is iTunes. Honestly we can only play movies we bought in SD and still it doesn’t really work because our internet is (thanks to my friends Jen and Tim for this phrase) powered by hamsters running on a wheel, and trying to stream iTunes just makes it practically implode.

Well what about DVDs and Blu-rays? Well, turns out those can also be of the wrong region. NONE of our DVDs work. Thankfully to the contrary, almost all of the Disney blu-rays work (hallelujah!) but not many others do.

Soooo anyway…we’ve really really gotten into Netflix because of the above (that and I have a lot more idle time), so much so that I had to upgrade my subscription to the one that allows a bunch of screens to stream at once.

Yes, it’s not good to watch too much TV, especially for the kids, I know. And I know they should be playing outside and being creative and that all of this is first world problems. But, it does rain a lot and it’s not AS easy to go out here. But, my kids are WAY too creative most of the time (CRAFTS and shows on shows on shows and more CRAFTS) and if I have to force them to watch TV to keep the house clean for 30 seconds, I’m going to do it.

So, just as I get into Downton Abbey, it goes away. Eh, whatever, I don’t really mind. I didn’t finish it, but at some point I will somewhere else (I got through the first 5 seasons but it was getting slow). BUT while I was so busy trying to watch it before they taketh away, I didn’t realize they were taking away ALL of Bennett’s favorites!

I mean, just as I wasn’t going to ask my FB friends “how many times do you think he’ll watch this SAME movie?”, I went to play it and it was GONE. But not only was CARS gone, so was CARS 2, Planes, Planes Fire and rescue, and Monsters Inc and Monsters University! They took away his LOVES! We own all of these except CARS (but I will soon) digitally (and some on Blu-ray) but most of the time the digital ones don’t work! (Damn it, iTunes!) Netflix you were so easy! And so good! WHY???

The big kids don’t seem to mind. They’ll pretty much watch anything – including CARS on its 100th play in a row, even if Bennett’s not in the room 😂😂😂. And I, personally, don’t really mind either because there are a ton of good documentaries for me to watch (currently on Auschwitz).

But poor Bennett keeps asking for “cars cars” all day. And I was just getting ready to sing Netflix’s praises! When we first got here, this “version” of Netflix seemed far superior to what we had before. Maybe we just didn’t notice because we were busier? Maybe it really is? Maybe the US Netflix had the same stuff this summer? I don’t know and I guess I never will.

But I do think we have an interesting set-up. For the most part, it’s in English. There are a lot of BBC shows, so I was thinking maybe we have the British Netflix, but there are a lot of Dutch shows and French shows. Most of the subtitles are only available in Dutch or French. Some of the words are changed in the titles into French or whatnot, even though the movie is still in English.

(Don’t mind my searching typo), but the title of Mother’s Day is in French even though the movie is still in English.

Moana is Vaiana here. Even at Disneyland Paris everything is Vaiana. The movie is still in English but her name is replaced with a Vaiana through the whole movie.

In CARS, all the newspapers and banners in the movie are written in (I think) Dutch and wish I had taken a picture! And Harv, the guy inside his truck, he’s British! I googled that and apparently different countries have a few special character voices that changed.

Zootopia, still in English, is called “Zootropolis” here.

Either way, Netflix obviously keeps me plenty entertained. I even have good times where I spend an hour just looking at all the thumbnails and reading the blurb about the shows…if it’s in English 👍🏻.

“The mental load” is another phrase social media has brought to life (the phrase is “brought to light” but I really think it should be “life” since I think social media created it, but I digress) in the last couple of years. It’s a real thing for sure -the constant pressures of motherhood and the mental load to keep it up. When I first read about it, I was like “YES!” It felt so much like me and I was glad to know I wasn’t the only one (considering everyone else always appears to have it all held together). It is in the mind where it often falls apart. Pure chaos.

In college, during a random conversation that I can’t actually remember, it came out that my friend has the total ability to have a completely blank mind. Like, “hey what are you thinking about?” And a “absolutely nothing” was the honest answer. I envied that at the time because it felt like my mind was always on. I’ve been meaning to ask her now for awhile if now that she has a children and a career, she still has the ability to let the mind go blank. If she does…I’m totally jealous.

Currently in a new state of being a SAHM, my mental load has changed, and maybe can’t even be described as a “load” anymore but more of “information and sensory overload”. While it definitely doesn’t feel as go,go,go as it did when I was working (“gotta do this and this and this and make this appointment and be there”) it no longer just feels like a checklist of stuff to do. It feels like I’m IN it. It surrounds me. It feels like a slow, but spinning circle. My responsibilities seem dull and there is not really a sense of accomplishment when I’m done…because nothing is ever really done when you’re in the house.

It currently seems like I never have enough groceries, there seems to be twice the amount of laundry (maybe just because I don’t have a laundry room to hide it in), I’m never done cleaning because there is a new cereal disaster or juice spill once an hour. Is this overwhelming? No, not really, but it’s all accumulating in my mind. “Pick this up, clean that, wipe that, fold those, need eggs, must get mail (but only after 1230 and requires 20 min drive, but must be back for Bennett’s nap), mail packages, buy more chocolates to mail, dinner, dinner, dinner!”

I think I just have no singular focus at all and so my mind is like a ping pong ball. There is an episode in Gilmore Girls toward the end of the series (I just finished binging on this) where Lorelai is trying to write a letter but her mind is everywhere else…and then she lists what’s going on in her mind…I may have never related to something so strongly before! (Also, they talk pretty fast and switch subjects quickly on the show anyway, and I really relate to that too). I am not sure I can upload a video on this blog but if I could I would.

Anway, that is me always but particularly last week in church. As we were walking out I told Justin, “I have so many thoughts!” Except they weren’t about church and I had to admit that I couldn’t even recall the idea in the readings 😳. I was ping-ing back-and-forth, from clothes to gifts to dinner to TV to the fact that I needed a TV in my room (for folding laundry) to school to sports to items I need to buy for sports to hearing a brief snipet of the homily to books to Christmas to halloween to makeup…it literally never stopped.

I think this is also pretty apparent in my blogs, at least in the topics. They’re mostly somehow related to our time here, but they definitely bounce around – travel, food, kids, school, travel, souvenirs. Realistically, 80% of the reason I’m even blogging right now is to try to get some of it OUT of my head and maybe find out that others feel the same! The other 20% is so I have lasting memories forever etched into the internet.

I mean, my mind has always been full and somewhat on overdrive, but when I was working I HAD to focus on pharmacy for at least most of my day – though I did still wander but most of that was done out loud to coworkers and Throughsinging.  Maybe that’s what I need? 1. Work that I’m ok at 😬 2. Adult stimulation 3. Music (I don’t listen to the radio here so I don’t hear new songs and half the time I let the kids watch movies so there is no radio anyway).

I need focus. For my immediate future, I’m going to try focus on Downton Abbey before Netflix removes it in 6 days. Today, I tried to watch an episode and I had to replay the same part at least 6 times because I couldn’t hear them (and the subtitles are only available in Dutch 😥) my mind wandered, my phone beeped, Bennett played his super loud trains 😬.

I’m pretty sure I’m lost 😂 (I do know the intended context, but today, I intend it differently 👍🏻😬)

Wait, what was I talking about? Kidding. Until the next one…

Ah, souvenirs – the bain of my existence. I am pretty sure my kids just like to waste money and feel like they must get something EVERYWHERE they go. Standing in tiny spaces with 3 kids plus one in the stroller makes me anxious and sweaty instantly. I. WANT. OUT!

“Mama, look! Mama, look! Mama, LOOOOOOOKKKK!!!” Those words make my heart start to race. Argh!!! I don’t want to look, I don’t want to be in here, I don’t want you to get another souvenir that’ll break in 30 seconds. And they touch everything in sight  I’m constantly grabbing things and saying “put that back!!!”

Tiny aisles filled with little die-cast Eiffel Towers, or windmills from Holland, or little statues of Napoleon, or little armored vehicles. What is the purpose even? To remember the place or to spend money? Still not sure. Even if they actually like something, it gets mixed in with other TOTAL JUNK in their rooms…and they never want what I want them to get.

So, this past weekend, we visited Amsterdam. We made it clear to Wesley that he didn’t get any souvenirs this time because 1. His last souvenir was broken THE NEXT DAY 2. He lied to us and his teacher 3. He misbehaved at school. It was a tough lesson, but we followed through! #winning (for at least one thing).

Natalie and Meredith really felt like they needed wooden clogs, but at some point Natalie decided a doll was better. This is where I get sucked in. I LIKED the doll.  She is awesome and very Dutch. But will she ever play with her? Doubtful, but at least I approved. I also approved of Meredith’s clogs, rationalizing that 1. It’s something that she can wear and it’ll get use and 2. She can share with Natalie. So, I am just as guilty 👎🏻. (I mean, I love a good souvenir as much as the next guy, but I take care of them and display them.)

Wooden clogs from the Netherlands

(BTW, Meredith wore the clogs to the museum afterwords and I think they hurt her feet but she wouldn’t say that. She claimed she just had a bad attitude because she didn’t want to be at ANOTHER museum – even after taking her to do something FOR her that ended with a new souvenir! Ugh! But she also wore them to school today).

The day before that we went to the Anne Frank house. How can I turn down a request for a poster of Anne Frank?!? (#enabler/sucker/pushover) So, I bought the girls a poster. Natalie insisted on carrying it instead of leaving it in the stroller. She made it about 4 stops and 6 hours and then left it in Starbucks, our last stop (I can’t turn down any good taste of what I call “America”). BUT, luckily for her, she realized it only a few blocks later and was able to run back and get it.

Other souvenirs haven’t fared as well. Most recently, Justin was the enabler and bought BOTH Meredith and Wesley really cool WWII-style army helmets.

First, even after multiple requests to pick it up and bring it in the house, he left it outside on the ground over night. We asked him again to pick it up, but I guess we didn’t follow through. Later he allowed the neighbor kid, to DRIVE OVER it and crack it. It was some seriously thick and heavy plastic and I’m not sure how, but it broke.

Two weeks before that, he wanted a French flag from Paris. For that, he sweet talked his aunt into buying it while she was souvenir shopping. Two stores later, I guess he set it down and left it because by the time we got to the car it was gone 🙄.

Luckily (!?!?) I took a picture before he lost it 🙄

Then there is the snow globe that Natalie got at the triangle border of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. That ended up as a sparkly mess of water and broken glass all over their room and under their beds that they tried to hide.

The next one is a little off of “souvenir” topic, but Meredith really wanted a pretty dress from the Belgian linen store. I fell in love with it and it was decently priced for a dress, so I enabled. I (yep, my fault) allowed her to wear it to school for picture day knowing it would probably never be the same…and it won’t be. She got off the bus crying because she knew I was right. “Someone in her class” was pushing to get to her whiteboard and dropped a dry erase marker on it. I am a laundry whiz and amazing stain-remover and the best salvager of  clothes, but the stain didn’t budge even the tiniest bit.

Belgian linen dress

Here’s a beret Natalie asked for in Paris. She hasn’t lost it but I can pretty much guarantee she’ll never wear it again.

A Parisian beret

And then there was Wesley’s armored helmet and sword from the Tower of London. We had that for maybe 3 days before it vanished in to thin air. We don’t even have a picture of that one.

And what hurts the most is that all of the really cool things that we think will make them enjoy their time more or help remember it more fondly, are often the items they lose or break. They never rip or tear or lose the cheap stuffed animals that plague our playroom, but they can drop toxic mustard on a cute shirt or ruin an army helmet in a flash.

Its really a double-edged sword for me (PLUS the obvious monetary component…I am a terrible money manager). I personally enjoy having the reminders of what we’ve done because, to me, it kind of gives the full experience. But is it also spoiling/enabling them? They don’t seem to take care of any of their personal items with any care and always sort of expect more. I know this is all a result of my rather push-over-ish parenting, but I’d really like to get them to a state of wonder and awe of the experience that includes respect for the experience and it’s souvenirs. I just don’t exactly know how. I have roughly 31 months to figure that out…or continue to fail miserably.

(I had Justin read this and he claims I’m the enabler of the expensive items and he’s okay with the little die-cast statues and such. Except he bought the army helmets and all the hats the kids have and the knight helmet that’s gone missing 😂😂😂).

He also bought these 👇🏻

Meredith’s hat. It has graced us for a pretty long time (like 4 months 😬). It’s only issue is how often I find myself carrying it.

Justin bought these bonnets In 2014 (maybe) and they have made if from Virginia to Florida back to Virginia and now to Belgium. This purchase was a win.

These days the “feels” usually refers to all the good feels someone has when they love something. But how does one describe the overwhelming feels? Like the traumatic-history-of-the-war “feels”?

Belgium’s history is a war-filled one. It has only been an independent country since 1840, and even in that short time it has been riddled with war, sadness and destruction. In the last two weeks we visited two sites that experienced massive loss, and I have been surprised at each. Pictures when combined with elaborate and historic dialogue about the pictures/era can be very powerful.

Ypres – WWI

First we visited Ypres, site of total destruction from WWI. While the turmoil happened 100 years ago, which is hard to believe, you can still feel it when you visit. Monuments stand as reminders of all that was lost and honor the names of the soldiers that perished here. “To the armies of the British empire who stood here from 1914 to 1918 and to their dead who gave no known grave.” And the In Flanders Fields museum does an excellent job portraying the turmoil so that you can feel it, even if you’re trudging through with a 2 year old.

“To the armies of the British empire that stood here from 1914 to 1918 and to those of their dead who have no known grave”

First we checked out the Ypres cathedral, which also had a mini- museum inside with WWI artifacts from priests and medics. It also had one of my new favorite statues of Jesus. It was a very powerful and moving statue that also envoked the general feeling in the air there.

Then to the In Flanders Fields Museum. The museum had audio guides that let you put in your age so the kids could follow through and learn about the war from someone their age and what they would’ve experienced.

It appears that multiple battles happened in the Flanders fields and in Ypres in WWI, but the heaviest loss was some 500,000 British in less than 100 days in 1917. The city was nearly completely destroyed. The images are incredible and you could really feel a sense for the destruction. And we were standing in the same spots as where this happened.

The last part of the museum had an exhibit with pictures from the war overlayed with current images of the same areas – mostly with farmers on their land. The biggest take away from this is that the farm fields are still riddled with artillery shells that haven’t exploded yet and still pose threats to those areas.

Overlay of current image over image from the war. Shows and unexploded shell recently uncovered.

Finally, the famous poem from 1915 about the area, “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae 👇🏻. After the war ended, the poppy was adopted by the city as a symbol of remembrance. Everywhere in the city sold poppy merchandise and I’m kind of kicking myself for not buying some! Don’t worry, I’ll go back 😉. On another note, the poppies aren’t just in Flanders (the northern part of Belgium). We have a fair share here in southern Belgium and they’re beautiful.

“In Flanders Fields”, a famous poem by John McCrae about the WWI

Bastogne – WWII

Next we went east to Bastogne, which was part of the Battle of the Bulge in WWII, which is really when America showed up in full force and helped fight Germany when the other troops were at their lowest.

The Bastogne War museum was amazing  where the audio guides and movies walk you through the war and really put you in the action. The movie I saw was in 3D on the battlefield . Justin saw another one that was set in the winter months and they sat on logs and the room temperature drops while the movie is playing.

There was so much to learn there and so much I didn’t know. It’s a beautiful tribute to a very sad and complex war. I wish I could elaborate more on what I saw but I know I don’t have the right words to describe it. I didn’t take as many picturess as I would have liked, but I a few are below. Any WWIII and history buffs should definitely add this museum to a list of must sees.

Battle of the Ardennes as part of the battle of the Bulge happened December 1944 and January 1945 and basically left Germany defeated.

After the battle of the Ardennes, Germany was basically defeated. A few efforts remained but were unsuccessful and the axis powers were defeated and their leaders killed/committed suicide.

Imperial Japan officially signs end to the wa, months after Mussolini and Hitler were defeated and died.

Sept 2, 1945 – the war is over! 36 years before I was born. I’ll be 36 this year. Somehow, 72 years doesn’t seem that long ago.

Next up…

When I found out we were moving to Europe, I knew we’d see all the historic battle sites and museums since Justin is a war and history buff. I still somehow pictured myself more just looking at old buildings and pretty scenery, not actually realizing how much history is here, especially in Belgium. It’s pretty moving and overwhelming. I am excited to see more, but especially to see the one part of WWII that I am familiar with – Anne Frank. Two months ago I booked tickets to see the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and I am excited to go this weekend and see it for my birthday!